A Promising Start
by caitizzles
Summary: Ryan is delusional. And a stalker, but in the adorably oblivious way. Chyan.


"Here again?" Ryan took this opportunity to look as condescending as possible. It was a rare chance because Zeke was a giant, and it's very difficult to look down upon someone so very tall, but the giant in question was currently on the bottom step of the Evans' very impressive front entrance, and Ryan was at the door. So down he did look.

"Yeah, I brought her white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. They are still gooey." He said the last bit rather triumphantly. Zeke was beaming. Ryan wanted to keep up the image of distaste, but it was proving difficult in the face of such sincerity.

"You do realize Sharpay hasn't consumed a baked good since carbs were declared the enemy approximately six years ago, right? Cookies are not the way into that woman's heart."

Zeke looked a little crestfallen, but then appeared to shake it off and was back to looking at Ryan in the eye in a way that he was finding far too endearing.

Zeke handed Ryan the still warm cookies with a shy smile.

"Thanks for the advice." And with that he headed down the driveway, got into his car and drove off.

* * *

Ryan's _brain_ knew that Zeke hadn't given him the cookies because he had a sudden change of heart right there on the driveway in which he decided to forego his heterosexuality and begin to pursue the less threatening (and significantly more male) half of the Evans twins, but other parts of Ryan were completely smitten. 

He'd stayed awake half the night crafting witty dialogue that ended with lots of kissing and a shared cookie, knowing the whole while he had gone completely insane. There was nothing for it, however, he had a crush on Zeke. He had tried feeding himself a million different lines to dissuade himself of the notion. Why would he want Sharpay's cast-offs? Why would he want someone with interests so different from his own? Why would he want a tall, handsome, sweet, varsity basketball player?

Damn.

* * *

He was starting to embarrass himself. The winter production had long been over, and tryouts for the spring musical were still several weeks away and more than once a week Ryan found himself discreetly lingering outside of basketball practices. The first few times he only stayed a few minutes, but he soon realized as long as he remained outside the boys were far too distracted to really notice anyone hanging about right outside the doors. 

His favorite part soon became the very end of a good practice. When they were excited from the exertion of their workout the Wildcats had a propensity to jump all over each other and to engage in some playful sparring. This always amused Ryan. He wondered if they realized how gay they all looked. Also, how delicious.

While Ryan enjoyed these small moments, the big picture was far from a happy one. Zeke hadn't stopped coming around with gifts for Sharpay. He had taken Ryan's advice to heart and had given up on anything involving calories, and had now resorted to terrible poetry and the occasional tacky bouquet of flowers. He would have found such gestures absolutely repugnant and utterly tasteless if he wasn't so busy trying to come up with ways all these gifts were Zeke's way of showing how much he actually cared about _Ryan_. You see, he was actually being quite transparent. He was positive whenever Zeke said "would you please give this to Sharpay?" he _actually_ meant "Hello, Ryan, won't you be mine forever?"

Sharpay, for her part, still wasn't quite sure of Zeke's name. Not only was her existence currently bothersome because of her status as the object of Mr. I-Bake-and-Play-Basketball-Fantastically-Well-and-Isn't-My-Smile-Bordering-on-Unbearably-Cute?'s affections but she was also becoming highly suspicious of Ryan's after school proclivities. She thought they should be preparing their spring musical try out for four hours nightly. Ryan didn't actually believe Gabriella and Troy were any more talented than himself and his sister, but they were a heck of a lot less bossy and generally much more pleasant to work with, and when you were dealing with a haggard old drama teacher a mere three years from retirement, they just didn't stand a chance. Additionally, for the first time in three years, the kiss between the male and female lead hadn't been written out because the two actors were related.

Sharpay was blind to these things, however, and on an already cold and bleary Tuesday morning she informed Ryan (rather unkindly, if he did say so himself) that he best come straight home after school that afternoon, if he knew what was best for his extensive collection of swanky head gear.

It was his last opportunity, and he was feeling desperate. Not nearly desperate enough to risk any sort of mortification on his behalf, but perhaps when they boys went inside the locker room to change right before practice he would sneak over to the haphazard pile of knapsacks and school books and have a rife through some of Zeke's belongings. Was it terribly criminal? Yes. Was it borderline pathetic and something you would expect of a person with questionable facial hair and a trench coat? Perhaps. Was he related to Sharpay Evans? Most definitely. And while this didn't _strictly_ account for the fact he was going to do something worthy of a restraining order, it most certainly did account for a predisposition towards the devious and immoral.

So he waited for the rowdy pack of boys to finally make their way through the doors leading to the location of many of his shower time fantasies and then made his move. He had been watching Zeke closely, and had a pretty good idea of what his bag looked like, but he hadn't planned for the absolute chaos of educational and personal paraphernalia littering the gym floor. After a few frantic minutes of searching he located Zeke's bag. He knew he was desperately close to being caught, but luckily for him something right next to the bag immediately caught his eye. It was a jewel case that was quite familiar on the high school scene. The CD inside probably held somewhere around 20 illegally downloaded songs, but more importantly it held all the information Ryan would ever need. He grabbed it and ran out of the gym heading straight for the parking lot. When he got there Sharpay had only had to time to work herself into a state of mild aggravation and was easily soothed when Ryan began enthusiastically retelling the story he'd heard in study hall about Gabriella Montez fully unclothed, bad lighting, and some self portraits of dubious artistic merit.

* * *

Ryan was feeling terribly morose. Practice with Sharpay had been business as usual. There was some yelling, more than a dozen threatening looks, but all in all, only one vase had been broken, which meant it had been a very good practice indeed. It was this CD that was saddening Ryan so greatly. He had secretly been hoping for a mix of Broadway's past a present best show tunes, proving without a doubt that he and Zeke were destined for love eternal. A blindingly bright future where they had adopted children from various third world countries and a world famous cooking show where Zeke made the food and Ryan was the adorably sexy assistant that spiced (excuse the pun) up the tedious, domestic and horrifically common practice of cooking by adding copious amounts of song and dance. The wardrobe would be fantastic, all outfits complete with appropriately charming hats. 

Of course, Ryan had known that recently his delusions had been getting completely out of hand. However, the slight self awareness that he was mentally unsound hardly helped him deal with the fact that he was up to track twelve and he had been unable to recognize a single song. They had all been woefully undanceable, thus far. It could have very well been released by MTV as _Jock Jams vol. 17_. There was also a terrifying moment when one of the "singers" (if you could really call him that!) claimed he had "a fever for the flavor of the coochie," and Ryan knew in vivid detail what it felt like to no longer have a will to live. He was near frantic when he pressed next for what he knew would be the final time, when something absolutely magical began pouring out of the speakers.

It was bouncy. It was uplifting. It was totally gay. The singer was actually partaking in the traditional definition of singing, there were all sorts of lovely instruments, and some of them were even of the classical variety! Ryan was in love all over again. His faith had been restored in every deity all at once. He was going to church this Sunday, and also possibly sacrificing a goat on the Ides.

After listening to the song no less than 12 times, he went straight to his closet. He needed a killer outfit for tomorrow.

* * *

Ryan _had_ planned on going straight up to Zeke and making things clear and also pushing him up against some unsuspecting lockers, but then he got to thinking. He remembered that dreadful song about girlie parts and also thought just because _he_ could tell that track number eighteen was totally gay, didn't mean that unfortunately straight jock boys didn't have the right to listen to it. After all, what sports stadium didn't play Queen after a triumphant victory? He definitely didn't want to make any assumptions nor suffer any embarrassments. Especially when he was wearing his most favorite hat. 

So he reevaluated. More observation was clearly needed. And he was no longer going to be shy about it. He marched into the gym and sat down on the bleachers, front and center. He wasn't stupid, though, he had a reason prepared in case he was questioned. Which he was, a mere 37 seconds after he seated himself.

"Evans, what are you doing here? Checking out Zeke?" It was the one with the ridiculous hair. Chad Danforth. He then quickly added, "For your sister, of course." His smile was far too knowing for Ryan's tastes, however.

"I'm preparing for a role," Ryan supplied, vaguely, hoping the barbarian before him would inquire further. "I need to observe the ways of you and your peers."

"Yeah? Gonna play a supremely awesome basketball player?"

"Oh, no. You see, the local playhouse is putting on _The Wizard of Oz_. I'm really hoping to play the lead flying monkey." _Zing!_ Ryan was incredibly pleased with himself.

Chad didn't look nearly as perturbed as Ryan had hoped. He simply laughed, rolled his eyes and said "I'll have my fingers crossed for you," and then meandered his way back to the rest of the team.

Ryan felt indignant. Sharpay had used that one plenty of times to great effect.

* * *

Chad must have informed the rest of the team of Ryan's intentions because save for a few glances he was not bothered by anyone else. It was actually considerably less awkward than he initially anticipated, as the Wildcats had a pretty extensive reputation a decent amount of his fellow classmates showed up to watch them practice, as well. In retrospective it made Ryan wonder why Chad had come over to question his presence at all, but he just brushed it off as it being surprising someone of his esteemed social stature would be deigning to watch them practice. 

Ryan tried to spend the entire time focusing on Zeke, and trying to mentally will him to make eye contact, but this was entirely unsuccessful and quickly became tedious. When he finally gave up staring solely at Zeke, he sought out Chad, and they made instant, and rather heated on Chad's part, eye contact. Ryan was immediately incredibly worried. He figured Chad had him all sorted out and was quite unhappy that Ryan was pursuing one of his teammates. A few minutes later, however, he watched Chad bump Zeke in a manner that even he could see was quite forbidden in the game of basketball and also in a manner that resulted in Zeke sprawled on the floor. Chad helped him up with what Ryan recognized instantly as false amiability and his worrying increased ten-fold. Perhaps Chad thought Ryan had already successfully brought Zeke over to the dark side and was quite displeased over the fact. What a homophobe!

Ryan left the moment practice was over, not eager to experience any Chad Danforth bumping abilities first hand, though with intentions of returning the next day. Except once all the others had arrived. So there were witnesses. Just in case.

* * *

After a few days, Ryan had started to become friendly with the other spectators. He was even considering giving up a yoga session to come to a real game. He was glad he didn't make any cancellations too hastily, however, as he realized somewhere around the fifth practice he attended that the group was made almost entirely of girlfriends and wannabe girlfriends and he was a pitiful part of the latter, considerably less cool group of hopefuls. 

After that realization he almost considered ending the whole thing altogether. He had originally hoped the crowd was minimizing the obviousness of his intentions, when in actuality it had probably made everything that much more clear to the otherwise slow witted group.

He had sacrificed too much at this point, however. Sharpay was ready to murder him. Slowly. This morning he found the mirror in his bathroom covered with threatening messages in blood red lipstick.

Every move he'd made so far had been utterly safe. It was time to take some action. So Friday afternoon he didn't go to the team's practice. It was an important one, as they had a fairly important game that night. He knew it would run late, and he also hoped if any of the players, or Zeke himself, realized his intentions and were displeased by them they would be too tired to get overly violent.

He waited in the wings for a while and, slowly, very exhausted basketball players began to trickle out. He saw Zeke, and then went to get his attention but he got held up when someone, quite forcefully, grabbed him on the shoulder and spun him around.

"Didn't see you during practice?" It was Chad.

"Oh, yeah. I, uh, I couldn't make it today. I just wanted to give this to Zeke, he-"

"That's not Zeke's." _What?_ Ryan began to panic a little and Chad was looking at him far too intensely and he was frustrated because Zeke was now out of sight and he was also starting to get really uncomfortable and really _hot_ under the unblinking gaze.

"Oh, really?" Ryan started out nervously, "because I thought I saw him drop it and I just thought-"

"Yeah, he had it," Ryan inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, "but it's the teams. It's our game CD, you know, we each pick a song, to fire us up for competition."

Oh!

"So, you are saying he didn't pick all of these songs?" When he said songs, he had to try incredibly hard to keep his hands at his sides, and not in the air making quotation marks. He managed, but only just, and he made the quotation marks behind his back. "Just one of them? Do you know which one?" He knew he sounded way too eager, but he figured Chad knew what he was all about a long time ago.

"Definitely number eight."

Impossible! That was the terrible one about terrible things of which Ryan could not speak. Nor even think.

"No," he whispered.

"I'm afraid so." Chad was smiling.

"Well, well, what about the last one? Who picked that one?"

"You liked that one?" Chad's smile was even bigger now.

"Perhaps."

Suddenly, Ryan found he had a mouthful of Chad, a handful of (ridiculous) curls, and an undeniably manly chest pressed up against his own.

"So have I convinced you?"

"Convinced me of what?"

"That you want me. Not Zeke."

"As if! Just yesterday all I thought you were capable of was looking at me in a decidedly menacing manner!" Ryan was bluffing as best as he could, because the truth was he was utterly convinced. Really, his brain was having a hard time remembering who Zeke was at all. He would have been embarrassed by the apparent fickleness of his libido, but then he remembered he was a seventeen year old boy, and no member of that species could ever be faulted for being interested in whatever was most available for groping at the given moment. And for being interested in something with so many muscles.

"Though you do have promising taste in music. Do you dance, Chad Danforth? I've seen your moves on the court and I think there is a spot for you in the spring musical." They were both laughing now, but then Ryan put his acting skills to good use and pulled a serious face, "Additionally, a few more minutes of what was happening thirty seconds ago and you might have me."


End file.
